by Benjamin T. Moore, Jr.

The Prescription – Part II

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” __Albert Einstein

Sitting around and defining the problem is easy. As a matter of fact, we have an entire cottage industry of pundits who are paid good money to come before us each evening and tell us what we already know. From about 3 pm onward you can turn to almost any Cable news station and listen to these well paid “trained observers.”

Aaron Brown

What do they all have in common? None of them ever offer solutions. None of them lay out a plan of action. None of them set in place the mechanisms to execute that plan. The ones who do, don’t seem to last long. Remember Aaron Brown of CNN? Each night he kept before his viewing public, the case of a missing 4 year old girl. The problem? Unlike Elizabeth Smart or Natalie Holloway, this little girl was Black. Not surprisingly Aaron’s tenure at CNN was limited and he is no longer there.

Keith Olbermann

Keith Olbermann is another example. Keith built MSNBC. He gave it the ratings it now enjoys… although they’re now falling after his departure. To attempt to portray Keith as volatile and difficult to work with is a smoke screen. Keith is Keith. He was not and is not an unknown quantity. There was nothing Keith did that even began to approach some of the antics of his competitors like Bill O’Reilly. Here’s what I believe was the problem. Keith started and funded – from his own pocket, along with donations – “Free Clinics.” He looked at the problem of working people not being able to afford healthcare and got with medical professionals to bring “Free Clinics” to depressed urban areas wherein people could come in and see doctors for free.

At these clinics, some people were actually transported to the hospital by ambulance. One such case was a gentleman who’s blood pressure was so high, he was in imminent danger of having a stroke. Keith identified a problem. Created a solution and managed that solution and now he’s gone. Both Aaron Brown and Keith Olbermann moved from being trained observers to actually fixing the problems they saw.

What if it were you?

Think of it this way. If you were in an automobile accident on the Freeway, and a news crew rolled up, jumped out, set up cameras and began reporting on the accident without rendering you aid, how would you feel? We’ve become a nation of voyeurs, watching the world come down around our ears, hoping someone will do something about it before it’s too late. Well, that someone is you.

Target Acquisition

I would be no better than any of the pundits you listen to each night if all I did was to describe and define the problem. Truth be told, you could probably do a pretty good job of that yourself. In Part I of “Zimmerman Acquittal – Lessons Learned,” I gave compelling evidence that minorities and Black people in particular are under an orchestrated, coordinated attack by a powerful Cabal, who’s views for the future look surprisingly similar to the old “Antebellum South.”

If you happen to be white and are reading this, you should be concerned too. Unless you were a rich, plantation owner, the only comfort you had back then was to tell yourself, “at least I’m not a slave!” There was not a lot of difference between a “Slave shack” and the dilapidated, run down shacks poor white people lived in. The facts were, they had more in common with the Slaves than they did with the wealthy aristocracy.

In order to fight back, I have identified 4 areas/targets we should all focus on.

STEP

• Social
• Technological
• Economic
• Political

At this point, you’re probably saying, “really? Is that all you’ve got? This is not news!” Often truths are hidden in plain sight. The objective is to so desensitize you, you ignore them. Once cloaked by ignorance, the solution becomes unobtainable. Let’s de-cloak these and perhaps see them from a different perspective.

Social

Everyone has an idea what is meant by targeting the problem from a social perspective. Indeed, that is part of the problem. There is no coordination of effort. No cohesive methodology and only a nebulous criteria for determining success and progress. Small victories are exaggerated and used as pacification. Many are deluded into thinking they’ve accomplished something and the collective energy level drops back to normal. The result is that nothing really changes.

The “Occupy Movement” is an excellent example of this. A lot of “sit-ins”, a lot of media coverage. People got arrested and subjected to pepper spray, with cameras rolling, but what if anything has truly changed? The collective energy was harnessed, assembled but ultimately released without being focused in the manner that would have created the change we all sought.

Wall Street Occupied

What would have happened if all those people, many of whom spent quite a bit of money on travel, had donated to a collective “war-chest,” hired a top flight law firm to file law suit after law suit to jam the courts and bury them in paper work? Hell! Hire several law firms! Imagine what an army of investigators would have uncovered. Imagine what an army of litigators might have done. Do you realize that a mortgage company must have the original “promissory note” the mortgagee signed? Not a copy but the original. If you don’t have the original note, no money is owed. With all the bundling of mortgages and shipping them all around the world, how many promissory notes do you suppose were lost? Imagine the impact of several million people learning, not only could their homes not be foreclosed on, but they could live there in perpetuity free and clear!

Technological

Knowledge is power! We live in a technology based society. We went from an agrarian based society, where our economy was dependent on farming and agricultural production, to the “Industrial Revolution.” Industry led to the creation of technology and now we’re in what we call, “The Information Age.” In order to effectively wield power in the “Information Age” you must understand the technology it is based on.

Make no mistake, knowledge is the ultimate wealth. Knowledge leads to power. Power equals control. Right now there is a network of cameras all across this nation that photograph the license plates of vehicles. You cannot leave your home without your movements being tracked. Why? Equally important is, how much do you believe this system – paid for by you, me and other taxpayers – costs? With data mining programs you can hit a button and create a comprehensive profile of almost anyone. If I know where you’re going, where you’re going to be, I own you.

If you do not understand the technology, you have no concept of the peril or how to defend yourself from that peril.

Economic

There is no such thing as a free lunch. We all know this, if not intellectually, viscerally. Anything of value has a cost associated with it. Yes, there may be some things that require our financial support, however there may also be some things from which we need to withdraw our financial support. Consider Walmart for example. For every job Walmart creates, 1.5 jobs are lost. Because we’re not seeing the arterial spray and only a drip, drip, drip, we ignore the fact we’re being bled to death. It is the height of insanity to bring the rope to our own hanging.

Economically, we need to realize that when we spend our money with companies who’s leadership does not share our focus, some portion of those dollars wind up supporting the very political aims that are devastating this nation and our communities in particular.

Fortunately, there are a lot of things we can do to turn the tables. It starts by “Teaching Our Dollars Some Sense.”

Political

Politics is the battleground. Not only are “all politics local” they begin in the home. Politics is not a spectators sport! There are no bleachers from which you can watch in safety. You’re out on the field whether you realize it or not. You are a player, a piece in a game of chess. You may start out as a pawn, but if you make it to the “end zone” you can become extremely powerful.

We talk about the 3 branches of government – Executive, Legislative and Judicial – but all 3 branches have their local equivalents. We have been led to believe that we are merely passengers on a bus with the destination, speed and route controlled by others. In point of fact, we can take over the bus. Most elections are decided before the first vote is cast. The people in charge of your local community have a lot to say about where and how your tax dollars are spent. They also have a lot to say about whom provides the services you come to rely on.

Take the price of gas. Right now you can drive across town and see gas station after gas station all selling gas at the same price. Not that far back in our history, we would call that “Price Fixing” and someone would be going to jail. Why is no one being investigated and prosecuted? That has a lot to do with the bought and paid for people who currently occupy the positions who could bring such a case to trial. How is it that Shell, BP, Marathon and others are all selling gas for the same price? If they’re all getting it from the same place, then they’re engaging false advertising. It would be like taking generic “Corn Flakes” and putting them in a “Kellogg’s” box.

In my next installment – “The Treatment Plan” – I will expand on the STEP acronym and give specific plans of attack. Yes, you can do something about this. Sometimes we just need a road map. No, I don’t advocate expending a lot of energy marching and demonstrating. Those are just pressure relief valves that do not accomplish much and allow us to relapse into the somnambulistic state so many of us exist in.  If you’re having a nightmare, the best thing you can do is to wake up. The alarm clock is ringing. It’s time to rise.

Stay Tuned For “Zimmerman Acquittal – Lessons Learned (Part III)” The Treatment Plan.